GENEVA — The top human rights official at the United Nations denounced a range of countries on Tuesday for what he called their escalating efforts to stop the Human Rights Council from monitoring abuses.

In a scathing appraisal, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the high commissioner for human rights, said he was appalled at what he called attempts to “block or evade human rights scrutiny” by the United Nations member states that created the Human Rights Council a decade ago.

Mr. al-Hussein said these states often invoke what he described as spurious arguments that human rights inquiries violate national sovereignty.

The trend toward obstruction, he said, has been accompanied by efforts to discredit global institutions like the United Nations and repudiate human rights protections that grew out of the two world wars. Those who have provoked these efforts, he said, include jihadist militant groups and “dangerous xenophobes and bigots running for office” in well-established democracies.